ISO Tamale Lady? There’s an app for that

When it comes to pursuit of savory husk-wrapped treats, Win Raguini hopes his hungry San Francisco neighbors will band together.

Virginia Ramos, better known to hungry drinkers as the Tamale Lady, travels to different bars in the Mission and other neighborhoods peddling tamales several times a week.

She has a few usual haunts, but moves often during the night. And sometimes a tamale is something you need right now. Thus Raguini’s new app, which answers the burning question: Where’s Tamale Lady?

“I was in the Mission one night and really wanted tamales — really wanted (Tamale Lady’s) and couldn’t find her,” said Raguini, a software engineer. “I’d seen her at Toronado, at Zeitgeist, so I cabbed there, but she wasn’t there. I was pretty mad. Someone (always ) knows where she is but doesn’t have a way to tell everyone.”

Now, generous-hearted tamale fans — after they’ve had their own fill — have away to tell the world where Ramos is stationed for the time being.

The app allows users to pull up a list of the 20 bars closest to their current location to limit check-ins to the immediate area. They can check Tamale Lady in to one of those bars, which updates the app for all users and also tweets an update to the Twitter account @tamaleladyshere.